True NLD

The right brain issues that define NVLD and Aspergers never go away; certainly the academic issues(math/writing) respond to remediation, but the problems with reading social cues, understanding increasingly abstract and complex language and nonverbal cues as they define teenage/adult social interaction, and problems with interpersonal/behavioral flexibility remain defining issues. Is it possible your son did not really meet the diagnosis of NVLD? Whatever the case, it’s nice to hear about improvement.

Good interesting questions. I wonder also about the accuracy of an NLD dx for my son. Granted he’s only 8, so I know many of the traits are supposed to worsen over time, but his behaviors that are NLDish have eased over time. He’s still an inflexible person in general, and his social skills aren’t fabulous, but he’s not outside the spectrum of “normal” behavior for his age. Maybe because we’ve intervened… maybe its not a perfect dx for him. Time will tell I suppose… I’ll be very curious to see how his VIQ/PIQ split looks in a few years as well.

I agree pretty interesting questions. This is supposed to be one of the hardest of all the LDs—but, I have seen my 5th grader improve tremendously since second grade. He is still not sporty at all—but he perfroms very well in social situations, he is not inflexible, his math is at least grade level, he reads and comprehends well above his age. His verbal IQ is top 3% and his nonverbal at the 80th percentile—still a split—but nothing like the HUGE split 3 years ago.

That being said, he has had OT, Speech and Language (a bit only), Swimming, Math tutoring, Samonas, and recently Interactive Metronome. I would do them all over again because he is simply amazing now. Still somewhat shy, but funny, friendly, interesting, and pretty self reliant. I have seen the most growth in the past year and a half with huge gains in independence after the metronome.

I was devastated when I first started researching NLD. Now, though very relieved, I am sometimes pretty angry about the information out there. It was so negative and caused me so many sleepless nights. But than I wonder if perhaps I wouldn’t have forced him to take part in so much intervention had the prognosis been positive.

Great to hear that the future is bright!
Ciao for now,
Margo

I should clarify, for those who are confused by my jumping all over the place.

The neuropsych diagnosed him as PDD. The school diagnosed it as SLD until I brought in the neuropsych report and the school wanted to go with NLD (like that was any less harsh than the PDD).

I truly think, from many sleepless nights myself, that it is dyslexia and CAPD which was left unremediated resulting in the secondary effects of anxiety fits my son the best.

I can go down the checklist for the PDD and the NLD and they just don’t fit enough to convince me. I have also spent time with children who fall within these dx’s. I can say yes to some things on the lists, but the same symptoms also show up on the lists for dyslexia and CAPD.

I agree with whomever it was that told me not to worry about the diagnosis. It did not affect my son, but it has certainly torn my heart out. I’m sure you all can relate. All I was in search of was information to help him. Where do I look. I’m convinced, by all of the things I have read, that the professionals do not know much more that us parents who are down in the trenches daily with these wonderful, precious kids.

But one more test tomorrow, speech language eval at the Children’s Hospital. I’m hoping to convince everyone, once and for all, including myself, that his disabilities are truly language based and not non-verbal.

little lulu wrote:
>
> But one more test tomorrow, speech language eval at the
> Children’s Hospital. I’m hoping to convince everyone, once
> and for all, including myself, that his disabilities are
> truly language based and not non-verbal.

I should say it is probably very unlikely that the children will fall into single category.

My son got four dxs on his neuropsychological eval., and some are language based and some are not. Hence what should I classify him as: verbal or non-verbal LD? The executive function disorder is certainly not a language based and expressive/receptive language dx. (which really came from - delays in reading/spelling - phonologically based and from RAN deficit) it is hard to find a more language-based dx. However, as you mentioned CAPD would make such a profound impact on a child development (and goes beyond academic skills- the social dev. woudl be tremendesly affected) that how can we really say that CAPD (which mostly affects the language dev.) creates a child with just language-based disability; it goes far beyond that. It creates a child who has many problems, so does the ADD. And slow processing- this really hits you, when you can never have an appropriate answer on time…and you know you know it!

When I look through the presentation of NLD/Aspeger- it definitively is not my son- who’s verbal abilities are two standard dev.s below his non-verbal, however.. He fits many other characteristics: he is quite inflexible and anxiety is definitively there. Hence, he probably fits both profiles to some extend. In such a case we are facing a dilemma- what is impacting him more? The fact that he does not read efficiently enough to fuel his intellect and develop his verbal skills- or the fact that his social skills are poor and he really suffers when called “retard”, or cannot transition quickly? I wish it was easier, but I agree- the diagnosis does not matter- finding what works to help the child matters a lot. Nevertheless, it seems it is easier to toss dxs to parents than to give them good advices for appropriate interventions (funny to say, but when tested in the new school the psychologist asked me whether my son has a Tourette syndrome- the answer was “no, this one was not given to him yet”, but I suppose he can qualify for that one as well- yes, he really could have).

This goes even beyond that: we have two opinions for helping my child how to learn to read- one: improve his phonological skills and go the OG/Wilson road and a second one- take advantage of his superior visual-spatial skills and teach him through visual clues, word families (which I suppose is something like a Benchmark program) I feel that his new school is just using both approaches at the same time and whatever will work- will finally do the job -yes, he has pure decoding lessons and yes, he builds his sight vocabulary at the same time.

I really liked this article:

The Almost but not quite Dyslexic Child by Thomas D. Scheidler

http://www.greenwoodinstitute.org/resources/resalmos.html

but the link does not seem to be working at the moment- maybe the server is down (they changed their WebSite quite a bit, so maybe it is gone for good..)

http://www.tourettesyndrome.net/ef.htm

Young children often have this split. My son is an extremely creative big picture person and therefore is more right brain, yet he has this same split from when he was tested in first grade. I am pretty sure he also has grown out of this split remediation being a part of this.
He also has superior social skills, better than most is age. On paper he looks NLD.

I have an NLD child and an ADHD child. They both have VIQ/PIQ splits but my ADHD son’s split is much more pronounced (154/102) than in my NLD stepdaughter (105/95). At first glance the scores would switch the diagnosis. More than one test is required and someone who really knows NLD needs to be involved. No adult would see a cardiologist for a broken leg but sometimes we trust non-specialists to diagnose our children.